Exactly where I was I could not tell. I had a faint notion that,
if I only kept on long enough, I should strike some part of Walham
Green. How long I should have to keep on I could only guess. Not a
creature seemed to be about of whom I could make inquiries. It was
as if I was in a land of desolation.

I suppose it was between eleven o'clock and midnight. I had not
given up my quest for work till all the shops were closed,--and in
Hammersmith, that night, at any rate, they were not early closers.
Then I had lounged about dispiritedly, wondering what was the next
thing I could do. It was only because I feared that if I attempted
to spend the night in the open air, without food, when the morning
came I should be broken up, and fit for nothing, that I sought a
night's free board and lodging. It was really hunger which drove
me to the workhouse door. That was Wednesday. Since the Sunday
night preceding nothing had passed my lips save water from the
public fountains,--with the exception of a crust of bread which a
man had given me whom I had found crouching at the root of a tree
in Holland Park. For three days I had been fasting,--practically
all the time upon my feet. It seemed to me that if I had to go
hungry till the morning I should collapse,--there would be an end.
Yet, in that strange and inhospitable place, where was I to get
food at that time of night, and how?

I do not know how far I went. Every yard I covered, my feet
dragged more. I was dead beat, inside and out. I had neither
strength nor courage left. And within there was that frightful
craving, which was as though it shrieked aloud. I leant against
some palings, dazed and giddy. If only death had come upon me